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MH370 search scaled back

The intensive air search for wreckage from Flight MH370 officially ended on Wednesday as the hunt was drastically scaled back, with ships also leaving the Indian Ocean area where the plane is believed to have crashed.

Australian authorities said the focus would move “over the coming weeks” to an intensified undersea search in the quest to find out what happened to the Malaysia Airlines flight that disappeared on March 8 with 239 people aboard.

Eight nations have been involved in the unprecedented Indian Ocean hunt — Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Japan, South Korea, the United States, Britain and China — with more than 300 sorties flown across a vast expanse of water in the search for debris.

But with nothing to show for their efforts to scan more than 4.5 million square km from the air since March 18, the planes have been stood down.